Boy, Was He Right
by Manchester
Summary: On Google, there’s nearly 40 thousand results on this topic. The numbers can only go up. No. 4 of Harmony's Halloween Choices.
1. Chapter 1

The first school day after the Halloween Friday night and the weekend, Xander Harris hobbled into the Sunnydale High library. Harmony Kendall was at his side, supporting him while having on her features a look of care, concern, and gleeful smugness. The others already in the library -- Giles, Buffy, and Willow -- all watched with increasing alarm that was finally brought to a head when the teenage boy slowly sank into a chair, producing pitiful whimpers all throughout his actions.

"Xander! What happened are you all right did your costume change were you hurt--"

"Willow Rosenberg, be quiet and breathe!"

The crisp command from Xander shocked the redhead into stunned silence, which was also shared by the Englishman and his Slayer. All of the other members of the Scooby Gang couldn't believe the air of authority in which the young man delivered his order to Willow.

Rupert Giles was the first to recover. Clearing his throat, the man began, "Er, Xander, we would like to know just what occurred on that Halloween. Frankly, while the media has given us a great deal of information, we're not quite sure about exactly what to believe." At the last, Giles waved his hand at the stack of scattered newspapers on the main library table where he and the other two girls were sitting.

Xander and Harmony both glanced at the table having on it numerous newspapers from various Southern California cities, and then they looked at each other, and promptly went into gales of laughter.

The Englishman sighed, took off his glasses, pulled out a handkerchief, and decided to start a lifetime high on his rpm's in polishing his eyewear. Buffy and Willow looked confused at first, until they also glanced at the newspaper front pages and then they aimed impatient glares at two people who were now reduced to fits of giggles that were clearly inappropriate for what was reported by the print media in screaming headlines:

SUNNYDALE MAYOR VANISHES!

ENTIRE TOWN BUDGET DISAPPEARS!

SUNNYDALE CITY COUNCIL AND POLICE FORCE INDICTED!

'GANGS ON PCP' TOOK OVER TOWN!

ELVIS WAS A VAMPIRE!

Finally losing her temper, Buffy Summers brought down her dainty fist on the table with a BANG! that resounded throughout the entire library. As the table shook and a young girl on her left and the mature man on her right both jumped, a pair of eyeglasses went flying through the air to be absently caught by Buffy and returned to Giles, both done without the blonde girl taking her glower away from two amused people across the table.

Still chuckling, Xander pointed at the newspapers, saying, "Hey, guys, it's all in there -- though I personally think Elvis was a zombie at the end rather than a vampire--"

In a tone of utter menace, Buffy growled, "Alexander LaVelle Harris, talk, or I will hurt you."

"No, you won't," quietly said Harmony in her chair next to Xander. She brought up her right hand to place it on Xander's left shoulder, with the boy momentarily wincing and then looking lovingly at the tall blonde girl, who herself held steady, with her gaze aimed directly towards Buffy's now-uncertain face. The girl with a musical name continued in a firm voice, "If anyone hurts Xander, it's going to be me and nobody else."

The mouths fell open of all three people at the other side of a young woman who had confirmed what had happened to their Twinkie-loving friend.

At last, Willow squeaked, "Harmony, Xander, please tell us what happened."

A final glance was shared by the couple, with the boy then wryly explaining to the other members of the Scooby Gang, "Short version, what else could you expect with a Batman and Supergirl team-up?"


	2. Chapter 2

That Halloween night, Bruce Wayne had found himself in his Batman regalia next to Kara Zor-El in a small American suburb, with no memory of how either had wound up there, and with their personalities now inside quite different bodies. Plus, at that exact moment, there seemed to be some sort of riot or attack upon the citizenry of this place by strange beings with unearthly abilities.

Naturally, Batman had taken it all in stride, quickly snapping orders that had Supergirl flying throughout the town at superspeed, protecting the normal humans, and using her superstrength in subduing and imprisoning the uncanny creatures while leaving these unharmed. The Dark Knight himself hadn't physically joined in. While his partner could use her Kryptonian abilities even in her new form, Batman couldn't perform at his highest peak stuck in a junk-food-consuming teenager's body.

*Hey, Twinkies are nature's perfect snack.*

That did it. Using mental defenses the Martian Manhunter had taught members of the Justice League for dealing with telepathic probes and attacks, the Batman had promptly restrained the personality of Alexander (*Xander!*) Harris and quickly conducted a thorough interrogation of that person now sharing the same body as the son of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

By the time a very confused Supergirl had come back to report that the town seemed secure, if having the weirdest people she'd ever seen, plus she was now sure someone else was also in her head, Batman had reviewed this Xander's recent memories and had quickly deduced the costumes the boy and his girlfriend had been wearing actually turned them into the DC superheroes. Wayne himself had been staggered about his entire life in this reality being the result of artists and writers creating comic books for over sixty years, but the fact remained in all that time, the Batman had devoted his existence to protecting the innocent.

Now, this town and its people, especially the children, was in peril, and it was all caused by someone named Ethan Rayne.

(At that point in the story when that name had been mentioned, Rupert Giles had come out of his chair with a roar of rage, standing with clenched fists at his side and his body quivering, with a furious face. It took several minutes and a threat of Xander to stop talking unless the Englishman sat back down, before Giles took his seat again, to stonily listen.)

A quick journey by superspeed to Ethan's costume shop ended up with the pair of superheroes confronting that Chaos mage, who'd in all his demon-summoning life had never met anybody as scary as a furious Batman. It took thirty-eight point six seconds after the first icy threat before Ethan mentioned a certain Janus statue.

*WAIT!*

"Supergirl, stop." Holding the bust of a Roman god in her hands just before crushing it out of existence, the young Kryptonian froze, and looked curiously at Batman, as that human stared ahead, and said impatiently, "What, Xander?"

Deep inside another's overriding personality, Xander Harris gave a mental gulp, and opened himself up totally. No secrets, all of his life exposed, not the slightest bit of privacy:

Sunnydale Tony Jessica Willow Jesse Buffy Skateboarding Slayer Giles Joyce Cordelia Angel/Angelus Darla Spike Drusilla the Master Amy Ms French Hyena Flutie Malcolm Jenny Snyder Larry Marcie CPR Ampata Harmony Melody

Fear, joy, terror, longing, death, compassion, sacrifice, lust, pain, friendship, acceptance, fury; it was all there, with three final components:

Life. Family. Love.

*Can you help?*

(At that, Giles shot out of his chair again, bellowing, "You asked a comic book character inside your head for aid?! What in God's name were you thinking, you young idiot?!" The two girls sitting at his side had disbelieving looks on their features, agreeing with the librarian's opinion.

Identical faint smiles were on Harmony's and Xander's faces, as he inquired, "Do you want to yell at me, Giles, or do you want to find out what happened?"

The Englishman reluctantly subsided back into his chair, and glowered at the younger man sitting across the table, as Xander started his story again.)

In the costume shop, a girl in a colorful red-blue-yellow outfit and a native of England now bound and gagged both watched a man in a costume as dark as night rub his palm over his face and sigh.

"Supergirl, put down the statue and do another patrol of the town. Make sure none of the transformed people can harm themselves or others, and also use all your super senses to check for beings with….no heartbeats and much lower body temperatures. These are considered prime threats, but don't yet move against them, unless they're actually attacking humans."

"Okay, Batman. Are these potential enemies some kind of aliens? Shapechangers? What, exactly?"

"They're…vampires."

"WHAT!"

"Trust me, vampires are real. I've encountered them before, and they're infesting this town. We need as much information as you can pick up. Look at EVERYTHING, and be careful. There's extremely strong magic in this place, and it can affect you just as well or even more than ordinary humans. Just consider how we were brought here by this idiot." Batman ended his statements with a jerk of his thumb at Ethan Rayne, who expressed muffled indignation through his gag at this insult, which was ignored by the pair.

"All….right. Um, before I go, I want to ask you a favor. It's not from me, kind of…."

Batman merely looked at Supergirl, who had a slightly worried expression on her face, as she reluctantly continued, "Er, Harmony….that's who's in my head….well, she wants you to not yell at Xander. He's a really good guy, from what she tells me and how she feels about him." A flush rose in the Kryptonian's cheeks, as the girl deep inside her mind promptly and clearly expressed her feelings about Xander Harris.

Under a black cowl, the stern features of a teenage boy, who rarely presented to the world such a serious expression, relaxed into his normal friendly smile. Supergirl blinked at this, both at such an atypical look on the Batman's face, and at someone else's surge of joy that had welled up inside her at seeing this. For a moment, Kara Zor-El was actually jealous.

The last daughter of Krypton was diverted from her unexpected feelings, as a voice she'd never heard before came from the Dark Knight's mouth. Instead of the severe coldness familiar to those who had long experience with the Batman, she heard a lighter, warmer voice affectionately say, "Hey, Harm, he's not busting my chops all that much, which is coolness, considering he scared the Hyena" (both Supergirl and Harmony were baffled by this) "so, even though this has to be the weirdest part of life in Sunnydale for me for at least a couple of months, maybe, it's kinda okay. Um, Kara -- can I call you that? Supergirl seems so showy -- sorry! -- uh, would, could you take care of Harmony? Please?"

Total incredulity overcame Supergirl over this babble, while at the same time a young woman trapped inside the superheroine's mind sent an ecstatic message to the entire universe: MINE! ALL MINE!

Kara felt her unfamiliar lips curve into a smile she was sure that could only be described as totally goofy, as she just managed to suppress her giggles. She….liked them both, Xander and Harmony, so she let her face fall into a wide grin, as she said right at the teenager's face while her right hand unthinkingly came up to touch that person in comfort. "I promise, Xander." As if that name had been a command, the face and body language of the male before her shifted back into severity, along with a raised eyebrow as the Batman bemusedly glanced at Supergirl's hand about to touch him.

Supergirl promptly blurred out of the costume shop, leaving only the gleam of her smile behind her as she went off chuckling at the surprise of her partner. At superspeed, she now had the chance to have a good talk -- conversation, rather -- with the girl in her head, as she traveled through the frozen-in-time streets of Sunnydale.

*You are SO lucky, Harmony.*

*I know!* (Mental giggles) *Would you like me to tell you about Xander?*

*Yes, everything! It'll stay just between us girls.*

*Okay, it started off as a really horrible day….*

Back in the costume shop, the Batman blinked at the spot where the girl (girls?) had vanished, and then the man in the black costume shrugged and sank to the floor, his legs curling into a lotus position with the expertise of a Zen Master, as he shifted into a meditative pose, and began to discuss plans with the boy sharing his head.

*Xander, we need to start this logically and strategically. Plus, there's a time limit. Whatever we do has to be done as quickly as possible, if only to lessen the effects on the others who changed due to their costumes. Understood?*

*Yessir.*

*Good. Now, tell me more about this town, especially the authorities. It's most suspicious how vampires and demons manage to roam about without attracting any attention.*

*Well, I told you about the Hellmouth and Sunnydale Syndrome--*

*That's itself extremely irregular, Xander. It just happened that a city-wide suspension of disbelief occurred, for the advantage of unearthly creatures? No, it's more likely it was created or formed by someone. Or something.*

*Wow. I never thought of that, sir.*

*I think you yourself were affected by this condition, at least until tonight, when I appeared in your head to give you a fresh perspective. Oh, and call me Bruce.*

*W…what?!! You…you want me to use your name? BATMAN wants me to use his name? Urghh….*

*It's what my parents called me, Xander. Considering we're sharing the same head, it seems rather absurd for us to be so formal.*

*Ahhhhh…..could you give me a couple seconds? I need to do something in another part of my brain.*

*What? All right, go ahead.*

*YEEEEEEHHHHAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!*

*Are you done?*

*Yessir -- Bruce.*

*What WAS that?*

*I just gave my comic book inner-geek a moment of total happiness.*

*I meant the other part of the whole thing, Xander.*

*Oh, that was the Snoopy Dance.*

*Ah. Try not to do it again, will you? The only thing I've recently experienced in your head more horrifying than that was how Adam West looked like in his version of my costume.*

*Okay, Bruce. (Willow likes it. It can't be that bad.)*

*Yes, it can. Now, back to business. I've been reviewing your memories, and what nobody else in your hometown seemed to notice was the fact that the man holding the position of the town mayor has evidently done so for about a century.*

*Mayor Dick?!!! That can't be right! Uh….wait a second….I can't ever remember anyone else running for office….um, I can't even remember any elections…. Are you sure?*

*Richard Wilkins the Third. Richard Wilkins the Second. Richard Wilkins. Plus, from what photographs of that person are shown in your unconscious, which you promptly forgot from your conscious mind, they're all the same individual.*

*Oh, boy. We've gotta be talking serious mojo here. Longevity or immortality, plus the mind-blanking, and maybe other stuff from the Hellmouth.*

*I suspect he might be controlling the Hellmouth itself. Looking back over your past memories, there are subtle signs of manipulation -- not just of that dimensional nexus and the city itself, but of your own group.*

*You can't be serious!*

*Do you really want me to run it all down for you? For one example, why was Ms. Summers so convinced she was going to die that she sacrificed herself to the Master?*

*Buffy was really bummed about being the Slayer then….*

*So that girl listened to the first prophecy she heard and went willingly to her death? The Slayer's a predator, whose first instinct is to fight, which she did well enough once you got her out of that pool. I think her mental state was manipulated during the whole thing, which was easy enough considering her nearness to the Hellmouth.*

*All of the Scoobies have to be close to it. It's under our freakin' high school!*

*Didn't anybody ever consider homeschooling for all of you?*

*Um…..*

*Sunnydale Syndrome again, I suspect. However, this leads us to our main problem. We're going up against extremely powerful magic. Unfortunately, the best offense against that is just as powerful magic, which we're lacking. I have some experience of magic in my reality, but I personally don't have any talent or powers, and I don't want to.*

*Yeah, the comics say you're pretty down on the whole mojo stuff--*

*Quite. Now, our main weapon, Supergirl, is regrettably vulnerable to magic, even more so than normal humans, so she can't act directly against those mystical forces.*

*Plus Harmony's in there, remember? I'm totally against anything where she might get hurt--*

*MATE! KILL ALL WHO HURT MATE! KILL BAT!*

*Shut that thing up, or I will.*

*Down! Down! Don't make me get out the big paddle! Go back to your place, and stay! Good boy! Go on!*

*I thought you had it under control.*

*Well, you brought up the whole thing about Kara -- Harmony -- in danger, which really sets Hyena off now--*

*GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!*

*Harmony's fine! Harmony's fine! Back! Back! Good puppy! Goooooood puppy, puppy, puppy-pup.*

*grrrrrrr……*

*Now you know why I dislike magic. I have some strategies that we can attempt, but there's a strong element of risk in them with no experienced magic-user on our side. While your Mr. Giles does show some skill and past proficiency with magic, I'm reluctant to take the time to seek him out. Well, as soon as Supergirl gets back and reports, we can refine our plans--*

*Uh, Bruce, what about Bondage Boy over there? I mean, he's gotta have major mojo chops, considering what he did here, so why not see if he can do anything?*

*He created this whole situation! You're actually thinking he had a change of heart and wants to make up for what he's done?*

*No. But you might persuade him to.*

*Xander, I think with the proper training, you'd do quite well in Gotham.*

*(I can die now. I've just been complimented by the Batman.)*


	3. Chapter 3

A couple of hours later, the body of Ethan Rayne slumped in his chair, the ropes making up his expertly-tied bonds hardly shifting as the magician quickly lost consciousness. Kneeling by the chair, the Batman pulled out of the side of Ethan's neck the syrette he had just jabbed into the flesh, at once spraying the wound with another syrette held in his other hand. The puff of droplets the Dark Knight laid over the tiny puncture wound promptly became solid and flesh-colored, as his combination of liquid bandage/antiseptic sealed the injury.

A keen gaze watched the Englishman's shut eyes and slack features with a physician's professionalism, judging his patient's color, respiration, and pulse, until Bruce Wayne was satisfied there were no adverse reactions. Straightening up, his hands deftly returned his medical devices back into his utility belt, all done without thought, as the man turned to the desk at the back of the room, his cape swirling around his body.

*Boy, that utility belt of yours really IS bottomless.*

For a fraction of a second, the stern features of the teenager in the black costume had the left side of his mouth tick upwards in a flash of humor. In the part of his mind set aside for his privacies, Wayne mused that his new partner shared with Dick Grayson not just the ability to say the right thing to break up tensions, but also knowing exactly when to do so. And when not to.

Standing at the front of the desk, the Batman glanced over at the far corner of the Mayor's office, where a small rug covered that part of the room floor. An hour ago, the crime fighter had grimly replaced the rug over a large pentagram inscribed in the floor and covered with reddish-brown stains that even the hardest scrubbing couldn't remove. In the course of his entire life, starting at the age of eight in Crime Alley, Bruce Wayne had seen those kinds of discolorations all too often.

At least that sight had been the decisive factor in convincing Supergirl, ending her reluctance to accomplish the final step in dealing with the Mayor. Both personalities in the mind of the boy were somber as they prepared for transportation the stack of papers in the middle of the desk containing documents, printouts, journals, account books, and other records holding the evidence of nearly a century of a town's evil. Man and boy, real and fictional, Westerner and Easterner, hero and just a guy, Bruce Wayne and Xander Harris were in firm agreement that it should fall only on themselves to go into the dark and face what was there, even to the last full measure.

It was enough that those they loved would always be in the light.

As if the very thought of radiance had summoned her, Supergirl appeared out of thin air inside the Mayor's office on the top floor of Sunnydale City Hall, at the side of the man dressed in midnight. Batman was so well accustomed to her cousin's demonstrations of superspeed that he didn't even blink, though deep inside, Xander mentally yelped in shock.

The boy's surprise changed to concern at the troubled expression on Supergirl's face, though there was no sign of this in her steady voice, as she asked, "So, where do you want him?"

Batman nodded at Ethan's limp form in his chair, and answered, "Cell 3B, plea--" Before he'd even finished, Supergirl had vanished again, along with the Chaos mage's body, leaving behind the ropes that had encircled the prisoner hanging in the air for a fraction of a second before they fell with a thud onto the chair seat.

Before the man had even taken a step towards the chair, Supergirl was back in the room, and the ropes had been neatly tied around the stack of documents on the desk. She waited, her calm face not showing in her mind the consolation Kara was giving an upset Harmony, as the Batman walked around the room, placing thin black disks he'd produced out of his costume at various parts of the room. The final disk was placed at the center of the rug that concealed where horrors had taken place.

Straightening back up from his stoop, the teenager in his costume stood motionless by the rug for a moment, paying his respects for the shades of the victims who had perished at that spot.

"All right, we can go now--" By the time Bruce Wayne finished saying that, he and Supergirl were both back in Ethan's costume shop, standing by the register counter with the stack of documents taken from the Mayor's office on top of this.

*Oooogh. That's really weird.*

Not reacting to Xander's comment, the Batman lifted his left hand, tapping the side of his black gauntlet with his right index finger. A small panel in his glove slid open, revealing a tiny row of lights, with the far left light glowing red. The man moved his finger to the miniature button under this light, and looked inquiringly at Supergirl, who nodded and vanished again. Right after that, Wayne pushed the button, and saw the tiny light wink and change into a bright green. Another tap of his finger, and the panel slid back into place.

*It's okay, then?*

As the Batman moved along the register counter to the just-installed computer taken from an electronics store (and paid for by petty cash from the Mayor's office), he answered the voice in his head. *If it wasn't, Kara would have been back by now. The incendiary devices I planted should be enough to turn that office into cinders, and she'll keep an eye on it to see it doesn't spread too far before extinguishing it while still leaving signs it was indeed arson rather than any kind of accident. She'll also have enough time to make a final patrol of this town, to check on everything and leave behind warnings to the transformed people that they'll soon change back.*

The computer came on, and Bruce Wayne began running through the procedures to transfer all evidence on it to the proper authorities of the non-demonic crimes committed by the Mayor, the City Council, and the police force. Quite capable of multi-tasking, he was unruffled by the worried teen's mental voice.

*This seems kinda too simple.*

*Sometimes simple works best. We leave behind evidence that suggests the Mayor skipped town, burned all his boats behind him and left his underlings in the soup, and for the federal and state law enforcement agencies it just turns out to be another case of small-town corruption. Much easier to understand, believe, and prosecute than hearing those they arrested claiming demons and vampires were ruling a California city, which would be considered just a very imaginative excuse and probably the start of their diminished-capacity defense.*

*Screw 'em. Those officials probably knew what they were getting into, and went along with it. Maybe they had qualms, but it didn't stop any of 'em from taking the money to send their kids to private schools away from here. While kids I knew all my life got eaten by the monsters in town. 'Sides, as Giles would say, it warms the cockles of my heart to know that none of those guys can say too much about what really went on here, with Ethan telling us all the bindings the Mayor put on 'em all to zap any blabbermouths into crispy crunch will still be working for a while. Long enough for those jerks to start sharing a cell with someone named Bubba telling them, "You look cute."*

For once, Bruce Wayne allowed himself an actual smirk, as his fingers tapped away on the computer.

After a minute of quiet, Xander's voice spoke again, a bit more seriously. *So, what are you going to do….after?*

The Batman's face turned somber, as he finished sending all the information necessary to start the investigations. *I'm going to have to really think about that. From what you told me about those events known as the Crisis on Infinite Earths, they're of unimaginable scope. Entire universes being destroyed by someone known as the Anti-Monitor…. It's hard to wrap my head around it all, despite what I've been through in my years in the JLA and Gotham. But….I'll do what I can. At least now, we -- all of us -- have some warning, and time for making plans. Whatever else….Barry and Kara won't die if I can help it.*

There was silence for a few moments, until Xander spoke again.

*Good luck, sir.*

*Thank you. At least she doesn't know, and I won't tell her unless it becomes necessary. Your girlfriend doesn't know, either? Or if she does, she was kind enough to keep quiet.*

*She isn't all that much into comics. Most of what she knows about Supergirl came from the movie, and I didn't tell Harm what happened to Kara in the series. It wouldn't have been nice.*

*Again, thank you. Well, it's clear that I have a great deal of work to do back….home, I guess you could call it, and I can't afford any distractions. So, I do have to apologize to you.*

*Huh? For what?*

*In my case, I have to deal with my own version of Sunnydale Syndrome, now that it's been pointed out to me a bit more kindly than I did to you. I'm going to finally deal with them all, those psychotics who've tormented Gotham. Starting with….the Joker.*

*Great! Considering what he did to Barbara and Jason, and lots of others, what're you gonna do to him, give him a lobotomy?*

*Er….no. Did that happen to him, in the….comics?*

*Not really, it was just proposed in a story. Didn't happen, though. So what, you're gonna put him and the others in the Phantom Zone?*

*You've really put a lot of thought in this, haven't you?*

*Well, after seeing the same thing happen over and over all the time -- him and the others get out of Arkham Asylum, they kill people, you fight them, they go back to Arkham, they break out again -- most fans have to ask if anything will ever be changed by the writers. I wonder if what you're going to do is going to leak over into the brains of the guys at DC Comics?*

*You'll just have to see for yourself. In the meantime, I'm going to do the most logical thing. Bruce Wayne is the richest and most influential man in Gotham, when he wants to be. So it should be easy enough for him to get on the board of directors for Arkham Asylum, particularly if he offers to completely fund massive security upgrades. All of these top of the line, with advice from a certain vigilante and others from the superhero community -- Mister Miracle, for one. Whatever else, I'm determined that they WILL stay in Arkham.*

*Cool! Sounds like it might work. Uh, you said Mister Miracle. You mean Scott Free?*

*Yes, from Apokolopis. Why? Do you know something?*

*Ah, I just wondered about his wife, Big Barda. Are they really that--*

*You just have to demonstrate that you're a sixteen-year-old teenager, aren't you?*

This mild rebuke was tempered by a mental chuckle from Bruce Wayne that continued at Xander's quick rejoinder.

*Hey, WE'RE both in a body chock full of hormones and thinking about all those lovely ladies in spandex at your home dimension-- GAAAAHHHH!*

A particularly wicked grin appeared on the face of the Batman, as he sent to the boy sharing his mind one of his most treasured memories of a time, when during one of the JLA missions, he watched Wonder Woman standing in front of him bending over to adjust her red boots.

It was quite a shock for Kara Zor-El to return to the costume shop at that exact moment to find the person known as the Dark Knight, avenger of the innocent, the grim defender of Gotham, the Batman, howling with laughter at the top of his lungs.


	4. Chapter 4

Several minutes later, a more restrained-acting man in a black costume was holding in his hands a statue of the Roman god Janus. He closed his eyes, and said in his mind:

*Goodbye, Xander. I'm glad to have known you.*

*Same here. Thanks for all the help! And, uh, you have people who love you. Don't shut them out.*

*I promise to give Alfred and Dick a hug. Barbara, too, and her father. If he doesn't swallow his pipe.*

*Heh. I wish I could tell Jesse about this. He would've turned green with envy.*

*We fight for them all, Xander. Those with us, and those gone to the undiscovered country.*

*Yeah. I'm gonna keep doing it. I….hope Harmony will understand.*

*'My true love hath my heart, and I his.' She has your heart, Xander, and she knows what's in it well enough not to stand in your way. Instead, she'll stand with you.*

Across from the man silently and earnestly conversing with the teenager in his mind, two females were also in a frank discussion among themselves inside their head.

*Didn't you ever think about him?*

*Well, I thought he was too old and serious….*

*He lives in a cave! Of course he's going to be a gloomy gus, considering what he's been through! As for being old, he isn't that much more than you, ten years, maybe. Not more than fifteen. All that does is make him more experienced.*

*Harmony!*

*You know I'm right, Kara. The biggest problem is that he pushes people away because he's scared of them getting hurt, and that would really hurt him. You, on the other hand, can take care of yourself. I mean, a girl who can drop-kick any one of his stupid enemies to the middle of the Atlantic from the East Coast might change his mind about being with someone.*

*Ahhh, Harmony, there's a little problem about that, which was carefully explained to me by Kal, who managed to turn the color red in at least six different shades of embarrassment on his face during the speech.*

*HE gave YOU the talk?*

*Who else was going to give it? But there's one particular difficulty….*

A few moments later, a voice from the depths of Supergirl's mind spoke disparagingly of a specific concern.

*Listen, you go to him right away and don't let him escape until he confesses, no matter how much trouble Luthor is making. Considering how long Clark and Lois have been together, there have GOT to be ways around that. Besides, he's your cousin. It's really fun seeing family members squirm.*

*You said he pushes people away because he's scared they'll get hurt in his line of work. How'd you deal with that with Xander?*

*I sat in his lap, grabbed his ears, and told him I wasn't going to leave and he wasn't going to stop, and we'd get through it all together. Oh, and I kissed him once after every separate word. Worked like a charm.*

*Hmmmm….. Sounds like a plan.*

*Truth, sister.*

"Supergirl?"

The mention of her name drew Kara's attention away from a giggling girl deep in her mind. She looked consideringly at the Batman, who blinked at her intense expression, and the man went on a bit more tentatively. "Are you ready?"

"Oh. Yes." *Yes, I am!*

*Go for it, girl! Kara….have a happy life. I wish we could've met each other in a different way. I hope we could've been friends.*

*We ARE friends. Goodbye, Harmony.*

*Goodbye, Kara.*

The statue of Janus, god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings, was hurled to the floor, where it smashed into innumerable pieces.

All over Sunnydale, the Chaos magic came to an end.

Dozens of people who had the misfortune of buying a costume from a shop run by a creepy Englishman came out of their daze, blinking and looking around themselves, as they found themselves on the streets of Sunnydale at night. With only the vaguest memories in their minds of what had taken place, and even these recollections beginning to disappear, it was decided by all to go home at once. It just didn't seem appropriate to further celebrate Halloween, so they picked up their candy-filled bags and set off, their Sunnydale Syndrome working, if at a much lower level than before.

In a house belonging to a pair of Jewish psychologists, a form lying on a bed sat up with a shriek and frantically clawed off her ghost costume, leaving a young girl wearing a sexy outfit taken from the closet of her closest friend. Panting, Willow Rosenberg looked bewilderedly around at finding herself back in her own home and bedroom, when just a moment ago she'd been in Buffy's house and trying to deal with becoming an intangible spirit. Not to mention having to baby-sit a totally idiotic Slayer who'd lost her powers and memories to become a hysterical seventeenth-century French noblewoman.

The redhead girl frantically thought over what she'd read a few seconds ago, when a slip of paper had appeared out of thin air in the Summers' living room, face up on a table directly in her line of sight, so that she had cautiously drifted over to look down and read it. Her amazement had only reached new levels over the following words:

'Willow, you, Buffy, and others in Sunnydale changed into your costumes tonight due to a magician's spell. Xander and I are working to get everybody back to normal, and this should happen right after you read this. I found your body where it was on someone's porch when you turned into a ghost, and put it in your bedroom, so that you'll be safe when you change back. Buffy will be okay in her home. Angel has been taken care of. Giles spent the evening working peacefully in the school library, so he doesn't know anything about this, and it'll just make him nervous if you call him. We'll tell everyone the whole story when we get together. Love, Harmony.'

What really worried Willow was the fact that the letter had NOT been in Harmony's handwriting. Still, as the girl nervously regarded the ghost costume lying on her bedroom floor, the letter had evidently been truthful in that she did seem to be okay. On second thought, after looking down at herself in her racy clothing, Willow amended this to being really hot, in the sense of looking sexy. Blushing, the girl scurried around in her bedroom, stripping off her borrowed clothes and putting on her favorite flannel nightgown.

Plopping back down in her bed, Willow snatched up a pillow and hugged it to her body for comfort, as her brain went a million miles an hour. If she and Buffy had changed into their costumes, maybe so did Xander and Harmony. Who, tonight, had dressed up as…. Willow closed her eyes, as she disbelievingly whispered, "Batman and Supergirl."

Okay, she needed to talk to someone about this RIGHT now. She leaned over to pick up her bedside phone, and hesitated over who to call. After a few seconds, she punched a number and waited.

At 1630 Revello Drive, a phone rang incessantly, ignored by a young girl sitting on the floor of her bedroom, her back resting against the side of her bed, and her ornate pink gown crushed as her sprawled limbs were held limply against her body. Finally, Buffy Summers turned her head to blankly regard the phone on the cabinet calling for attention. With a resigned sigh, she scooted over, not paying any attention to whatever damage she might have done to her Halloween costume on the way. Picking up the phone, Buffy lethargically said, "Hello?"

"Buffy did you change back so did I what happened to Xander and Harmony--"

"Willow, I'm not in the mood" wearily said Buffy.

In her bedroom, a shocked Willow stared at her phone, her babble cut off by Buffy's sluggish tone. The redhead tried again, this time more slowly and comprehensibly, with real concern, "ARE you all right? I thought when you'd changed back to the Slayer that everything would be okay!"

A slender hand came up to the neckline of the gown, gripped it, and casually tore silk like it was toilet paper as Buffy ripped off the entire front of the dress off her body. Her casual answer had a deep darkness to it, as Buffy replied, "Yeah, I got the Slayer back. All of it."

"Ah, you don't seem all that happy about--"

"Willow. I remember everything I did, said, and felt when I was whoever that brainless bitch was, the original wearer of that dress. Right now, I'm totally mortified, so let's get this over with. We're still friends, but I don't wanna see anyone. I'm glad my mom and Melody are in L.A. for the weekend, 'cause I'm gonna spend all that time vegging out. I don't wanna think about the Slayer, Sunnydale, vamps, demons, or anyone I know. I'm gonna eat everything bad for me, do my hair and nails, walk around in my underwear looking like a schlub, go through my closets and catalogues planning for new outfits. In short, until Monday morning, I'm gonna take a vacation, and it starts RIGHT NOW!"

Willow barely had time to wail, "But what about Xander and Harmony?"

"I need a vacation from them, too." SLAM! went the phone.


	5. Chapter 5

In the Sunnydale High School library, a brunette and a blonde had their heads together, giggling as they pictured in their minds their friends' reported telephone conversation. Buffy, Willow, and Giles all glowered at Xander's and Harmony's unseemly behavior, until the Englishman firmly spoke up and got the attention of the teenagers sitting across from him.

"Ahem. You seem to have left a great deal out from your story. For one, what happened to that bloody pillock Ethan--"

Willow broke in, "What did you do to the Mayor? Why didn't you like it, Harmony?"

The pair of teenagers had shifted their heads and attention consecutively from Giles to Willow to now Buffy, as that girl pulled a slip of paper from her jeans pocket, to brandish it as she snarled, "What'd you mean, you took care of Angel?! I stopped at the Crawford mansion early this morning before I got here, and there wasn't anyone there!"

Both Willow and Giles stared in surprise at the Slayer glaring at her friends, who were returning her look of fury with a steady gaze. It was Xander who began, by saying, "Okay, guys, we'll answer all of your questions, but we'll do it our way. We're gonna talk, and you're gonna be quiet and listen. Got that?" At the grudging nods of the trio across the table from him, the young man continued, "Let's put it this way: we cleaned up Sunnydale."

"First, we went up against the Mayor, using Ethan and the Chaos magic in his Janus statue. Since we were working against the natural order of things in the running of the town, the guy was perfectly okay with causing anarchy in bringing down the authorities. And since Janus is the god of doorways, among other things, his statue acted as the perfect means of getting through the Mayor's wards and protections. They all went totally open when we brought the statue up against them, and we finally got our hands on the Mayor himself."

Harmony then took up the story. "He was totally amused by the whole thing, being down-home folksy just like he acts -- acted around people when running the town. At least, until Batman found out about the pentagram. Then….he changed, becoming a real demon and about to murder us all. That's when Supergirl acted."

Xander continued, with the three other Scoobies across the table hanging onto every word. "Ethan was able to remember what kind of demon the Mayor was -- an unkillable with serious immortality spells, unless you've got a handy volcano or something like that. Well, we did have a real-life superheroine capable of bending steel in her bare hands. Unfortunately, she still had her basic principles in that she wouldn't take the life of anybody, even a monster like Wilkins. She did agree that demon had to go, so we found a loophole. One odd side effect of Ethan's Chaos spell was that while it stopped at the exact city limits, there wasn't any rule about how high the spell could go. So, Supergirl just grabbed the Mayor, flew him right up to outer space directly over Sunnydale, and just….threw him away. Right into space, away from the Earth, as hard as she could. I'd say right now he's a few million miles from this planet, still going strong, and he'll keep traveling for, oh, forever. Which is as long as he's going to live. Not as a happy camper, though, trying to breath vacuum."

"I still remember flying…. That's the thing I miss most about being Supergirl." Harmony said this with soft yearning, her face wistful in remembering a wonderful memory.

Xander reached out to fondly grasp Harmony's hand, giving her a supportive look, as he went on in a lighter tone to break up Harmony's sudden somber mood. "Once Supergirl got back, she headed right to the most deserted grounds of this school and dug a wide tunnel at superspeed straight to the Hellmouth. I bet you didn't feel anything, right, Giles? She's good at her job."

Harmony grinned, pleased at Xander's praise about Kara Zor-El, who the girl still considered a friend even if she was now gone. "Yeah, she is-- was. Anyway, the Mayor had complete records about all of the demons in Sunnydale, as part of his protection racket. Basically, all of those guys had to pay him to stay here, to be safe from the other demons, or to be allowed to prey on humans. Supergirl was able to memorize those files in just fractions of a second, and she could check those demons she saw on her superspeed patrols through the town against the records. Once she found a hostile demon, she grabbed him, her, it -- whatever -- and took them to the Hellmouth and dropped them right into it. Kara was okay with it, since she wasn't killing anything -- they just went to another dimension. We couldn't do that to the Mayor, since he was really controlling the Hellmouth, and putting him in it risked him coming back."

Xander looked at the fascinated Slayer and directed his next words at her, since this would affect her job in protecting the world from the Hellmouth. "We left the neutral and friendly demons alone -- yeah, Buffy, there are some and you're going to have to learn to recognize them now that they're the only ones left. We did drop them all a note telling them that things have changed in Sunnydale now. They don't have to pay the Mayor anymore, but they still have to leave humans alone. In return, the Slayer will leave them alone as long as they play by the rules. Once all that was done, Kara filled the tunnel back up -- still didn't notice anything, Giles? -- with earth compacted almost to diamond hardness, and she did the same thing around the whole schmeer. Ain't nothing coming outta the Hellmouth there without serious work."

Harmony smirked at that and ostentatiously examined her fingernails, remembering how hard it had been to clean under these after watching Kara performing millions of slaps against earth to turn this material into a substance harder than granite. She then looked up and confided, "After that, it was time for the next step: vampires. Supergirl didn't have any problems destroying every one of those monsters, since the bodies of the demons' victims were already dead and the spirits of those blood-drinkers could just go back to hell. We both felt….satisfied about it all. Well, I did ask Kara to take her time on one specific vampire, just for Xander's sake."

Xander had a truly evil grin slowly appear on his face, as he chortled, "Heh, heh. I just wish I could have been there when Spike broke his fangs trying to bite Supergirl's neck. He was holding his mouth and whimpering like a little girl just before she used her heat vision to burn a hole in his chest big enough to drive through." The young man looked off into the distance as he went into his Happy Place when thinking about how Kara had told the Batman and him what she'd done. Bruce had been a little disapproving about that, since it had taken up precious time, but he had allowed that Xander had needed a boost to his morale since there hadn't been much for him to do while just watching the crimefighter working to gather evidence at the Mayor's office.

As she rolled her eyes, Harmony chided, "Stop gloating, Xander. So, guys, there aren't any more vampires in Sunnydale. Not a single one."

As panic suddenly appeared on Buffy's face, Xander said seriously, "Yeah, Buffy, that includes Deadboy. Oh, don't worry, he's still alive -- ah, existing, in one piece. He's just not here in Sunnydale anymore. And he's not coming back." Buffy's expression promptly turned into confused fury, as she prepared to erupt, causing the young man to hurriedly speak, "Wait, wait! Hear us out. There's a really good reason why he had to leave. Uh....Harmony, you did promise to be the one to tell her."

The girl at Xander's side pulled her face in mock disgust at her boyfriend's cowardice in not wanting to be the bearer of the bad news, but she looked sympathetically at Buffy, knowing that the smaller blonde girl wasn't going to be very happy over what she was going to hear. Holding Buffy's worried gaze, Harmony started talking. "In the Mayor's records, Batman found what Wilkins had done. That guy knew sooner or later a Slayer would come to the Hellmouth, and he came up with various ideas to take care of her. Well, you did, and, uh, he worked a serious spell on you your very first week here, adding it as part of Sunnydale Syndrome in your exact case. This spell was called simply Eternal Irredeemable Love, and, I'm really sorry, Buffy, but it made you….fall in love with the most unacceptable person around."

Buffy stared with horror at the pair sitting across from her, Willow, and Giles, sharing her shock with the redhead girl and the librarian. Xander gingerly joined in the conversation, knowing it was quite possible Buffy was going to react with violence over this, or worse, possibly bursting into tears. "If it helps any, we got part of that spell, too. Not a single one of us ever wondered why a Slayer would completely miss the fact she'd fallen for a vampire. It took one humdinger of a spell keeping your Slayerness from dusting Angel right after meeting him the first time."

As Willow thoughtfully frowned, and opened her mouth to protest, Xander correctly guessed her objection. Shaking his head, the boy told his bestest bud, "It wasn't because of his soul. Slayers kill demons, regardless of whether they have a soul or not."

Taking a deep breath, Xander went on, anxiously looking at where Buffy had fallen back into her chair, her face now a mask of misery that made him speak to her kindheartedly. Even though he still detested Angel, Xander now grudgingly knew that vampire hadn't had any actual choice over his relationship with Buffy, who was evidently beginning to really hurt over the whole thing. "So….now that the Mayor's gone, the spell's gone, too, and, uh, if you ever see or meet Angel again, it doesn't matter how you feel about him. The Slayer in you is gonna insist you destroy him on the spot. I….really don't want to put you through that, Buffy."

Harmony said gently to an unresponsive Buffy, "I wish it was otherwise, but Xander's right. I -- Kara, that is -- put all the information we found about the spell and what else the Mayor had done on a note, and put the note in his coat pocket when I found him in your house--"

Xander gritted his teeth, and muttered, "Just for that, I really want to kill the Mayor! Without that goddamn spell, we'd never have convinced ourselves it was perfectly okay for a vampire to waltz into our homes!"

Giving him a sharp look, Harmony, who wanted this all over with, said, "Anyway, after Kara gave him the note, she moved him back to the mansion, with another note telling him to read what he had, and to leave town at once to find out if there was any way to overcome this. Since you clearly haven't heard from him yet, he might still be looking…."

Xander, lost in his re-examination of his feelings about Captain Hair-Gel, said under his breath, "Or he's found out nothing can be done and he's trying to work up the courage to break the bad news…."

Harmony snapped: "Xander! Be nice!"

His face stricken, Xander knew he'd gone a little too far, as he wholeheartedly apologized, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Frantically casting around for a safer topic of conversation, the teenager glanced at Giles, who was beginning to appear a little numb at all the surprises provided by the pair telling their story.

Xander brightened up, as he remembered what the Englishman had asked about his compatriot, and the younger man spoke directly to the librarian. "Oh, yeah. Giles, you wanted to know about Ethan. Well, the Batman wasn't in any mood to tolerate any further idiocy from him, so at the end of things at the Mayor's office, Ethan got dosed with a special kind of drug from Bruce's medical kit. Basically, it wiped the guy's short-term memory, so he can't keep anything in his head that happened five minutes ago. Batman then hacked into the Sunnydale jail computers and set up a record of Ethan being found wandering in the streets with evident mental problems, and being brought into custody long enough for him to be sent to an asylum."

Harmony winced at that memory, and also how Giles' face now turned white over this news. She was quick to reassure the man, "Oh, don't worry -- the drug will wear off in about a week." The girl thought back to Kara's unhappiness over the Batman's ruthless solution of the Ethan problem and then of the superheroine's reluctant acceptance of how the magician had been dealt with, and what Supergirl had mentally explained to the girl sharing her mind.

She cleared her throat, and seeing she now had Giles' attention, the girl told him what Kara had said to her, "It might not have been the right thing to do, but there simply wasn't time to think of anything else, and Ethan was just too dangerous to be let loose or even jailed while still keeping his powers. Batman did give his word that there wouldn't be any permanent effects. Even the temporary effects just make him unable to concentrate, and he won't mind all that much, since the drug's also a pretty strong euphoric. He'll spend a lot of time just giggling and watching the pretty colors in his head."

For some reason, Rupert Giles at that moment had a quick flash of guilt pass over his features. Puzzled, Harmony went on, her voice becoming more assertive, as she remembered what she'd seen of the anarchy in Sunnydale caused just for fun by the discussed Chaos mage. The girl said in a cool tone, "In any case, you'd better check with your contacts in the magical community, to arrange for him to be transferred into their custody. I don't think they'd find it all that hard to do, plus considering what else he's probably done, I bet they'd be really eager to get their hands on him. What they do with him is up to them, as long as they take care of it. That man's an evident menace, and even if you were really friends with him way back when, well, he's done too much beyond your standards." Harmony let a bit of sympathy appear in her voice at seeing the anguish on Giles' face, and finished softly, "It's time to say goodbye to him, Giles."

Xander grunted, "Yeah. As it is, you're gonna be too busy to care about Ethan, anyway, G-man."

The librarian's usual glower at his detested nickname was only a pale shadow of his normal glare, as there was instead much more pained confusion now shown by the man at this news. Xander allowed a grim smile to appear on his face, as he explained, "You see, in a way, even Bruce admired the Mayor for his thoroughness. That guy set up plans and plots that busily ticked away for years -- decades, even, before finishing. We learned that about what he'd done to Buffy, and Wilkins outdid himself when it came to the Council itself."

Harmony was shaking her head, as she delivered what was going to be an immense shock to a man she'd grown to like very much. "Sorry, Giles, but he played you all, you and the rest of the Watchers. You can't even use the excuse of Sunnydale Syndrome, since you should have seen the problem right there in England. A secret society that lasted for centuries, even thousands of years, capable of searching the entire world for Slayers and looking after potential Slayers, having their leaders live in mansions and working in entire office buildings -- and basically sending no help at all to one guy reduced to working as a high school librarian, plus his Slayer, and objecting to others helping her?" Harmony's eyebrows rose in evident disbelief, as the shock of dawning realization appeared on her listeners' faces.

Rolling his eyes, Xander chimed in, "Yeah, in all the time the Watchers' Council existed, nobody heard of compound interest to bring in money? Plus, leaving the fate of the world to a California cheerleader, with no heavy backup? It all comes down to this, Giles: the Mayor blackmailed the Council into leaving him alone."

For a long minute, there was total silence in the library, as a young man and a young girl watched with sympathy as a trio tried to wrap their minds at what had been stunningly sprung on them.

Harmony gently began talking again, to a dazed native of England. "It's true, Giles. We have all the records of how Wilkins found out the current heads of the Council had been embezzling their funds for years--" the girl hastily interjected in her explanation, "-- don't worry, your family wasn't doing it --" as she went on, "and forced them to change their policies in dealing with the Hellmouth. The Mayor didn't care about what the Council did with the rest of the world, as long as they left him alone and did what he told them about Sunnydale."

A true look of fury now appeared on Xander's face, as he snarled, "What really busts my chops is that a lot of the big guys there hoped the problem would just solve itself with you getting killed, Buffy." His voice flattened into iron-hardness, as too many memories came back to the young man of fighting and barely surviving monsters without anybody helping. "It happens they've got a good little soldier -- a girl named Kendra -- that's more fitting of their ideal of a Slayer, which might have a lot to do with their continued advice to us here of 'good luck, chaps, ta-ta, pip-pip, what ho, etc.' Assholes."

Harmony glowered at Xander for his language and said firmly to him, "Do you want me to wash out your mouth with soap, Mr. Harris?"

At his sheepish look, Harmony snorted, and looked again at Giles, her voice shifting back to sympathy, "Anyway, Giles, it's up to you to do the right thing. You have to go back to England and take care of the Council. The evidence we have can't be argued with, which means the current leaders will lose their jobs. It's your decision on whether you want to send them to jail, but they have to leave. Frankly, anyone else would do a better job." At this, even Buffy came out of her grieving over the end of her relationship with Angel, to sit up straight in her chair, an alarmed look on her face.

Xander managed to disregard this, as he firmly told the older man, "Yeah, the word 'anybody' refers to you, Giles. You know all about the Council, your family's been in it for umpty-years, you've trained and fought with one of the longest-lived Slayers ever. We'd totally miss you, but the Council does one of the most important jobs in the world, and it needs somebody who really can do a good job leading it. Plus, it can't possibly hurt that, when sending in your resume, you casually mention the really big bucks." Now a true ear-to-ear grin was bestowed on the adult Xander Harris considered a true paternal influence, as the young man put an arm around his girlfriend's shoulders and gave her a warm hug.

Melting into Xander's side, Harmony felt a lot happier now that the really painful information had finally been shared, and her joy bubbled in the girl's voice, as she said with a wide grin on her face, "Oh, didn't we mention that already? A century of squeezing blood out of a town -- literally in some cases -- plus an actual talent for finances, like when Wilkins invested in IBM in the fifties and gold in the late seventies, meant that he had all the money he needed to carry out his plans and bribe anyone. The Batman found the Mayor's codes for his accounts in various banks in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, and other places, and just took what was in there. A lot of it was sent anonymously to various charities who do good work -- the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders -- but some of it was moved to an offshore bank for us Scoobies. Even split five ways, it means we're all stinking rich."

At that, Harmony paused, waiting for Xander to take his turn in continuing the military-style after-action report they'd rehearsed over the weekend, but there now came a surprise from her boyfriend sitting with her, as he instead jokingly amended what she'd just said.

"Ah, Harm, you and the others might reek of wealth, but me, I'm only a bit aromatic now, since I got back here from my trip yesterday." The teenager had now shifted his attention from his three thunderstruck friends across the table to watching the girl at his side.

Harmony looked at Xander with puzzlement. "What're you talking about? Where'd you go, and what did you do? You wouldn't tell me yesterday."

With an anticipatory smirk, Xander answered, "I was in L.A. To be precise, Rodeo Drive. I needed to get this….and I hope you'll accept it."

As Harmony stared in bewilderment at the young man, Xander pulled a small jewelry box out of his jeans pocket, and with an half-fearful, half-yearning expression on his face, he carefully opened it to reveal a gleaming gold ring surmounted by a more-than-respectable glittering diamond.

After just staring for several moments at what Xander was holding in his hand, Harmony lifted her gaze to the young man's anxious face that was beginning to become panicky, and the girl slowly smiled, feeling joyous tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes, as she decisively said, "Xander Harris, I accept this ring….and everything else that comes with it." She held out her left hand, spreading her fingers.

Grinning from ear to ear, Xander plucked the ring out of its box, holding his engagement gift by the edges as he brought it to Harmony's ring finger and carefully slipped the ring onto that finger, in a supreme gesture of true love.

At that exact moment, Sunnydale Syndrome met the forces of drama and lost two falls out of three, with pure farce now triumphantly victorious.

The ring stopped short on Harmony's finger, becoming jammed right before the girl's second finger joint.

A totally horrified Xander stared at the wreckage of his grand gesture, before the sheer absurd ignominy of it all changed his features into pure despair as he lifted his gaze to look into Harmony's face to receive from her whatever emotions she surely had to be experiencing, such as disdain and scorn.

His beloved's face now held only joy and mirth, as she promptly giggled, "Oh, Xander, you can be such a thickheaded male! Rings can be resized! Just take me with you to a jeweler's, and we'll get it fitted!"

"You're….you're not mad?" croaked Xander, hardly believing his ears.

Harmony's left hand lifted from Xander's grasp to raise up to cup his chin in the palm of her beringed hand. She leaned forward, cooing as her lips met his, "Is this me mad?"

"Mmmmmm!" moaned the young man for several moments as the pair gave each other a long, tender kiss. Finally, both ran out of breath, and they turned their heads to affectionately rub their cheeks together. Holding their faces next to each other, Xander and Harmony simultaneously blinked in surprise, as they looked at the other three people there whose presence they'd forgotten.

As the other members of the Scooby Gang sat in absolute stupefaction, staring at the engaged couple, Buffy, Willow, and even Giles had eyes the size of saucers and their mouths sagging open, with their chins resting in disbelief on their chests, and a beaming Xander Harris summed it all up:

"Mission accomplished. We broke them."


	6. Chapter 6

Several minutes later, Xander leaned back in his chair, wincing slightly, until his face returned into the smirk he'd had on his face for a while now. Looking over at Harmony, the young man's grin only grew wider at seeing his girlfriend proudly holding out her hand as the other two girls cooed over her engagement ring.

Standing side-by-side in front of Harmony's chair, their heads together as both Buffy and Willow intently studied the ring, it was the redhead girl whose engrossed face changed to sudden worry, as she voiced her misgivings, "Uh, Harmony, that ring is really eye-catching--"

"That's the point, Wils!" interrupted Buffy, trying to suppress a flicker of jealously over what Harmony had on her hand.

"Yeah, but it might get too much attention. People are going to wonder about two teenagers getting engaged, and also how Xander could possibly afford that big a diamond -- or even if it's real--"

Now it was Xander's turn to interrupt, "It's real, Willow. I can show you the receipt, if you want."

A thumping sound drew the four teenagers' attention from their discussion, as they all looked at where Giles was sitting at the library table. For the last five minutes, the Englishman had borne a bleak expression on his face as he'd gone through the journals thoroughly detailing how the Mayor had blackmailed the Council -- names, dates, amounts, instructions -- until Giles had finally slammed shut the records in complete disgust, pulled off his glasses, and started moodily polishing them.

Catching sight of the quartet staring at him, Giles blinked, and evidently ran through their conversation of a few moments ago in his mind. Seemingly glad of something to possibly dispel his sour mood, at least provisionally, the librarian replaced his glasses, and cleared his throat. "Er, Xander, I'm a little surprised about how a teenager acquired so easily such a valuable object in the first place. Weren't there any reservations or suspicions at the jewelers' shop?"

As the girls' attention switched back to Xander at this question, the other male Scooby just shrugged. "Hey, it was Los Angeles, Giles. As long as the bill got paid, nobody would've batted an eye if I handed over the credit card while dressed up as Marilyn Monroe. Actually, I bet if I'd done that, the entire shop would've waved goodbye when I left with the ring, and broken out in a musical number of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend'."

Xander proudly savored both the three girls' giggles and Giles rolling upward his eyes at the young man's punch line. The teenager mentally awarded himself a record high score at the Englishman's caustic, "Indeed."

There was a pause for a few moments while the librarian eyed what sparkled on Harmony's ring finger, before the man thoughtfully said, "I'm sure there are spells that can be used to disguise that. Perhaps a minor glamour--" Giles actually jerked back in his seat, swallowing his words at the simultaneous furious glares sent his way by all three girls.

Buffy grabbed Harmony's wrist, and while waving the girl's hand with its ornament in Giles' direction, the Slayer snarled, "NEVER call this minor, you….you….man!"

"Uh, Buffy--"

"Oh, sorry!" Buffy hastily let go of Harmony's arm, and then the smaller blonde shot a dirty look at Xander, who was laughing at the top of his lungs. At least, until the young man suddenly clutched his sides and grimaced with pain. Both Buffy and Willow now stared in worry at the seated teenager who cautiously rubbed his ribs, before looking over at an equally-worried Harmony with a reassuring smile.

Willow perplexedly said, "Xander, you didn't say anything about getting hurt while you were the Batman--"

For some reason, that exact remark caused Harmony to utter a choked snort and promptly clap her hands to her face, covering her mouth with her fingers, as she rocked in her seat while barely containing sounds of, to the others' disbelief, what could be nothing but screaming laughter.

As his girlfriend seemingly lost her mind at his side, the trio of bewildered Scoobies watched Xander Harris develop, from his collarbones to the tips of his reddened ears, the most impressive blush they'd ever seen. The young man's mouth opened and closed soundlessly, as they all watched him trying to put words together to say something, anything. Finally, a loud statement was issued with total conviction:

"IT'S ALL ETHAN'S FAULT!"

As the other two girls and the older man tried to comprehend this, Harmony straightened up from leaning forward in her seat, ending the shaking of her shoulders, and taking her hands away from her mouth to wipe tears of mirth from her eyes, as she turned to a beet-red boyfriend to giggle, "He couldn't have possibly known!"

All of the watchers now shifted their attention back to a glowering Xander answering Harmony, "I still think it was some form of delayed payback, for what Bruce did to him!"

Harmony looked exasperated at having to continue what was clearly an old argument, "And the same thing's against that -- he wouldn't have done anything that might bring him back!"

Giles was the first to understand, as shown by his paling face and a horrified, "Dear Lord…."

This finally directed the two engaged people's attention to their audience. Xander looked around at all those staring at his girlfriend and himself, and at once looked sheepish and guilty. Harmony, on the other hand, now had an expression appear on her face of total mischief.

The tall blonde, who on Halloween night had dressed up as the last daughter of Krypton, leaned over towards Xander, to place her right hand palm up under the bottom of his chair, and in one smooth, effortless motion, she lifted this piece of furniture containing her boyfriend, to hold it casually directly over her head, neatly balancing over a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight on the palm of her hand.

Keeping their gazes fixed on all of this, including Harmony smiling at them, Buffy and Willow now both slowly backed up until they bumped into the library table, and then they followed the edge of the table to their seats by Giles, to fall into these chairs, still with dumbfounded expressions identical to Giles' own.

Throughout it, Harmony kept her impish glee on her face, while above her, Xander had quite a different expression on his features, that of absolute apprehension. Through stiff lips, the young man managed to force out the words, "Uh, Harm, you can put me down now…."

Looking up to see Xander staring straight ahead, Harmony also spotted how hard his fingers were gripping the sides of his chair, putting an evil idea in her head that she promptly carried out, as she happily said, "That's okay, Xander, I could do this all day." Right after that, Harmony did a quick push with her hand, causing the chair to bounce up a few inches and then landing back on her palm to once again become rock steady in her unforced action in holding it high, with all this producing a panicked yelp from Xander.

"H-Harmony!"

As the girl smirked upwards at Xander's now-whitened fingers hanging on like grim death, a very meek voice asked, "Are…are you Supergirl?"

Glancing over at Willow's awed expression, Harmony's own face changed to sadness, as she answered with quiet melancholy, "No, Willow, she's gone. I'm no more Kara than Xander is Bruce."

A voice much higher, both in altitude and pitch, joined in, "Yeah, about that…. Iza saraba, yukimi ni korobu, tokoromade!"

Harmony looked blankly up at where Xander had just spoken in perfect Japanese. "What WAS that?" she asked.

"A Basho haiku. 'Now then, let's go out, to enjoy the snow….until I slip and fall!' Put me down, already!"

The young woman easily bearing the weight of her seated boyfriend huffed, "Batman swung around Gotham City hundreds of feet in the air on a rope!"

Xander tightly pointed out, "You're talking about a guy who's so obsessed with the bat symbol that you have to wonder about the shape of the toilet seat in the Bat-John!"

Rolling her eyes, Harmony finally lowered Xander's chair back to the library floor. As she brought her hand away to straighten up, the girl smirked right into Xander's scowl, until her attention was caught by something else to make her smile even wider. Her boyfriend followed Harmony's gaze, and his look of irritation now changed into a reluctant grin at the identical open mouths of Buffy, Willow, and Giles.

"Boy, what I wouldn't give for a spitball right now."

That brought the other three members of the Scooby Gang back to something resembling rationality. Nobody but Xander Harris would say anything like that at this specific moment.

Giles closed his eyes, and asked a simple question.

"What happened?"

Xander and Harmony glanced at each other, looked back at the others, and simultaneously shrugged. It was Xander who spoke first.

"Best guess, Giles, there was a magical backlash from destroying the Janus statue. We found over the weekend that nobody else was permanently affected by changing into their costumes -- or even remembering it, thanks to good ol' Sunnydale Syndrome. You guys weren't affected by it, either?"

The last question had been directed at the two girls seated by Giles, who both shook their heads. Buffy confirmed, "All the memories are vanishing, just like that, and I can't wait for them all to go!" She glared into the distance as if regretting the impossibility of giving the long-dead girl who'd taken over her body on Halloween a good thumping.

Willow looked at Buffy out of the corner of her eye, to then wryly say, "It's the same with my ghosthood. I spent the first day after Halloween bumping into walls until I finally decided I wasn't able to walk through them any more." The redhead smiled at Xander's grin produced by him picturing this. Her amusement vanished at Giles' serious voice.

"But…you kept your….abilities. Powers." The Englishman held a steady gaze on the two teenagers seated before him, the blonde and the brunette, who looked back equally calmly. But then, they'd had an entire weekend to discuss it between themselves, as confirmed by Harmony's next words.

"Giles, we think that it had to do with us being in the same room, with our costumes filled with Chaos magic and our heads filled with our, uh, visitors, when the statue broke. If, say, we hadn't been there and someone else had broken it, who wasn't wearing one of Ethan's costumes, we probably would've just changed back like everyone else."

The librarian slowly nodded, his thoughts busy as he went through in his mind his years of studying magic, finally admitting, "That seems logical…. Wait a second. If everything changed back, wouldn't whatever this….Batman gave Ethan also change back, or wear off? Couldn't we….talk to him, to see if he can shed any answers about this?" Giles' face had a half-eager, half-hesitant expression as he contemplated meeting his once-friend again.

"I don't think so," said Willow thoughtfully, her intelligent face preoccupied with a new puzzle. "If someone's costume changed to produce a hammer, say, and if Ethan had been hit hard with that hammer before it changed back, he'd still have the bruise caused by that hammer. I bet the drug Batman gave him is gone, but its effects are still ongoing." The redhead looked around at the others, who accepted this, except for one person who hadn't been paying all that much attention.

Instead, Buffy Summers had been eyeing Harmony Kendall, with the shorter blonde girl finally asking the question most on her mind.

"So, if you're not Supergirl, then what are you? I could do what you did to Xander here, but no normal human could." Buffy hesitated, to sheepishly go on, "If it helps any, I can't read you as any kind of demon." She then shot a suspicious stare at Xander. "You, on the other hand…. Since when do you know any more Japanese than sushi, sumo, and Godzilla?"

Xander guffawed, and then his face became serious. "The most important word about that question was 'know,' Buffy. See, the effects of that Chaos spell match its name: unpredictability, disorder, confusion. But first and most important, we're NOT Bruce Wayne and Kara Zor-El. We had enough time together over the weekend to find a lot of what we're now, after the spell. Let's start with me."

Harmony placed an arm around Xander's shoulders, producing a quick smile from him to her, as the young man turned to the three others at the library table, and began explaining. "I basically got what Bruce knew. Not his specific, personal memories, which is just as well -- I really don't want to remember seeing his parents murdered. No, it's mostly what he learned. For one, if I want, I could be the world's best escape artist and martial arts master, IF I want to do the training. That's a big drawback in everything I got from him. I know a lot, but I don't have any practical experience, which is necessary for a lot of it. For instance, Giles, I now basically have a medical degree and a surgeon's skills, but would that make you happy if I had to remove your appendix?"

Buffy and Willow had to suppress snickers at the librarian's acerbic comment of, "I believe I shall pass on that, Xander." Giles looked thoughtful then, going on to ask, "Is that how you acquired your new language skills?"

"Uh-huh. Not just Japanese, but a lot of others -- French, German, Spanish, Arabic. Some old ones, too -- Greek, Latin. I don't just speak them, Giles, I can read them, too. No demon languages, though. Bruce never knew any, so I don't either, except for what I learned here." Xander stopped, to glance around at the library they were in, and continued, "Oh, there was one other, though I'm not sure how much I'm going to use it. Right now, I can speak perfect Kryptonian."

Willow's eyes brightened in a research-geek reflex. "Do you know anything else that Bruce -- Batman -- did? I remember from the comics you and Jesse shared with me that he spent years traveling around the world, learning everything he could."

"Oh, a LOT of it. Criminology, science, engineering, chemistry, computers, disguises, tracking, tactics…." Xander's voice trailed off at the looks of awe he was now receiving from his friends. He had to remind them, "Guys, I've never actually done all of what I know now, and it's not a good idea to rush out and really do them for the first time. Skydiving, for instance. Also, a lot of Batman's knowledge just doesn't apply here or is completely useless. For one, I have absolutely no use for knowing the best crime patrol routes through Gotham."

"You'd be a really big draw at the San Diego Comic-Con, Xander," muttered Willow, smirking at her friend's exasperated look and the others' puzzled expressions.

"Wait," said a confused Buffy. "Do you have Batman's stuff or Bruce Wayne's? It sounds like both, to me."

"Despite what's in the comics, he's really one person," Xander told Buffy. "But I do have stuff that only matters to Bruce. Like, I can now tie a perfect Windsor knot, and I know how to use the oyster fork at a banquet. Not that I really want to. Oysters….yuch." After the Scooby Gang member grimaced at the last, he briskly went on, "More important, I've got in my head an MBA from Harvard Business School, as needed by someone who's running a multi-billion dollar corporation. That's why I wasn't bothered by the price of Harm's ring -- I'll get it all back soon enough anyway. There's this stock I've got my eye on, a funny name of eBay.…"

He was interrupted by Harmony giving him an affectionate peck on his cheek. Smiling, Xander watched as his girlfriend took off her arm around him, to place both of these neatly on her upper legs, palms over her knees, as she shook herself once, and eagerly looked at the trio watching her and Xander. "Now, it's MY turn!" giggled Harmony.

"Yeah," agreed Xander. "Go ahead."

"Well, guys, as you noticed, I've got Supergirl's powers. Just not the full ones, though, or even all of them. We don't know why. It could be due to the Chaos magic, maybe that they won't completely work in this dimension, or even because I'm human instead of a Kryptonian."

Xander nodded, interjecting, "There's also something about them that isn't in the comics, kind of. They're variable, changing in their levels depending on how long she's in sunlight."

Harmony firmly said to her boyfriend, "I'm talking, Xander!" She started ticking off items on her fingers. "Strength: about half yours, Buffy, just before sunrise, to about twice as strong as you after all day in the sun. Speed and endurance: about the same changing levels. Invulnerability: nothing like the comics. Xander couldn't cut me with a knife, but I was able to give myself a small cut, though the knife shattered when I did it. Healing: faster than what I had before Halloween, maybe a little slower than yours, Buffy. It wasn't superhealing, the cut didn't close right away."

Xander looked unhappy at this last memory. He glanced with concern at Harmony, and said firmly, "You better not get shot, missy! It's Wonder Woman, not you, that plays bullets and bracelets!"

The blonde girl sighed, but still bore a small smile when it was Xander's turn to lean over to kiss her cheek. Her face turned to real sadness as her boyfriend pulled back, and she whispered, "There's also something that's completely gone. I tried, and tried, but I can't fly!" At these words, Xander put both arms around her to hug hard his woebegone girlfriend.

Watching the pair giving each other comfort allowed the trio seated before them to come out of their daze over what they'd learned. Oddly, it was Buffy who came out with some comics knowledge, sympathetically saying, "Hey, at least you don't have to worry about kryptonite, Harmony!"

"Yeah," sniffed the other blonde girl. "Thanks, Buffy. Uh, I do have to be careful around magic, though. Since Kara was both brought here and sent back by the Chaos spell, it's clear I can be affected by it."

"Er….you may be right," managed Giles, as he thought this over.

Now it was time for Willow to enter the discussion. Her eyes were half-closed as she reviewed all she could remember about Kryptonian abilities from the comics. Now, they opened wide, as the redhead realized something, to ask, "Harmony, do you have any, ah, super senses?"

Xander snickered. "Well, she doesn't have super-ventriloquism. Not that I ever figured out how it was done in the comics, or even if it was actually a sense--"

The young man was stopped by a now-smiling Harmony's hand being clapped over his mouth. The girl now looked fixedly at something at the left of her audience. Willow, Buffy, and Giles all followed Harmony's gaze to see that she was staring right at….a wastebasket?

It was a simple metal container on the floor next to Giles' desk, now filled to the brim with paper as usual, since for some reason, no school custodian would come anywhere near the library. A grumbling Englishman, sooner or later, had to physically carry anything that needed to be disposed of out of the library into a corridor trash can. Knowing this, all three people looked with puzzlement back at Harmony, to see something that completely staggered them.

The eyes of the girl with a musical name glowed red, and then beams of pure red light shot forth from these orbs in a perfectly straight line directly at the wastebasket, lasting just a moment. Right after that, the papers at the top of the wastebasket burst into flame.

Xander observed all this, a very delighted expression on his face as he now watched how his friends' heads wildly turned back and forth at Harmony and then to the wastebasket merrily blazing away. Just a fraction of a second before Giles would have shot to his feet and gone about frantically getting his hands on the room's fire extinguisher, Harmony pursed her lips, aiming these directly at the burning wastebasket. There was a soft 'puff' noise, and Giles, Buffy and Willow all disbelievingly witnessed the fire in the wastebasket instantaneously extinguish. Even more incredible, the wastebasket itself, whose metal sides must have been scorching hot just a second ago, was now coated with rime, this glittering along the edges and sides of the container.

"Heat vision and freezing breath," casually commented Harmony. She hastily added, seeing how the others' faces showed their brains were about to pop, "Nothing like Kara's level, though. The distance to that wastebasket is how far I can use both, and they're nothing like her power. I can burn through a wood log a couple of inches thick, and turn a filled ice-cube tray solid, both a distance a few feet from my face."

"Can you imagine how surprised an up-close vamp would be, getting either right in their mugs?" gleefully said Xander, a somewhat bloodthirsty snicker coming from him after saying that.

Rolling her eyes at the young man's vindictive comment, Harmony now looked at Buffy, Willow, and Giles, all who flinched at being under her gaze. Exasperated, the girl said, "It works only when I want it to! You don't have any problems shaking hands with Buffy, who can crush bricks in her grip!"

Sighing, Giles said for the others, "We….apologize. However, it's all a bit too much to take all at once. Ah….that's all of it? No more surprises, astonishments, revelations?" The librarian's voice was actually pleading.

Harmony actually had to think this over, before nodding, "Well, there's one more thing…." She stopped short, her lips quirking as the others groaned. "No, wait! It's not all that important, but it just makes sense, and uh, it might be useful…. It's this. I can speak Kryptonian, too."

The trio blinked at her, and then they looked at Xander, who confirmed this, "Yeah. Which kinda brings up some interesting tactics, between two people who speak a language nobody else in the world knows."

"Two people? Or more?" Now it was Giles whose face showed interest.

Xander had to actually think this over. "You're right. It wouldn't be all that hard to teach it to you. Or, maybe Buffy and Willow, too."

The Slayer pulled a face as she glanced over at the excited faces of Giles and Willow. More homework, she mentally muttered, as she got up out of her seat, being followed by the others as it was clear the conversation was over. Buffy's gloomy thoughts were interrupted by Xander's muffled groan as he stood up. She frowned at him. "Hey, Xander, you never did tell us how you got hurt on Halloween."

Both the young man and the young woman standing across from her whooped with laughter at the same time, and had identical grins on their faces as they looked at each other, before turning to face their baffled audience. "Can I, Harmony, please?" pleaded Xander.

"Oh, all right, as long as you don't get into the actual details," sighed Harmony, though her face was smug.

"Oookay! First, Wils, do you remember a couple of years ago, when you came across Jesse and me snickering over a science-fiction book we had and demanded to know what we were reading?" At seeing Willow's uncomprehending face, Xander added, "The author was Larry Niven."

As the redhead's eyebrows lowered in concentration, Buffy and Giles watched her, until Willow suddenly had a shaken expression appear on her features, as she clearly remembered. It only increased the other two's mystification as Willow now stared at Harmony, and then Xander, and back to Harmony again, with an ever-increasing blush rising up from Willow's lower body to completely turn her entire head a bright red. Then, really alarming Buffy and Giles, Willow sank back into her chair, leaned forward to put her upper body face down onto the tabletop, and folded her arms over her head, all while whimpering.

"Yeah, you remember!" sang Xander, a totally evil grin on his face. Willow's whimpering only increased at that.

Now looking at the other pair totally at a loss, Xander went on, "See, guys, when the statue smashed at Ethan's costume shop, we got back into our own bodies and our fake costumes, and we were really glad to see each other then."

"Well, of course, Xander," said a puzzled Giles.

Now perfectly deadpan, Xander continued looking at Giles, while saying, "Really, really, really, really, really, really glad to see each other."

At this, Buffy herself felt an overpowering blush appear on her own face, as she stared at Xander slowly turning his head to lovingly stare at a truly satisfied Harmony. As she felt an absolutely-frozen Giles at her side, Buffy was unable to stop watching as Xander took a step toward Harmony, to take her in his arms, as he continued talking over her shoulder, in a low, gleeful tone the Slayer could hear all too well.

"See, Niven wrote a very funny and very dirty story about how Superman, a guy who could crush a chunk of coal in his bare hands into a diamond, would have certain problems in doing the horizontal mambo with a normal human woman. I can tell you now from personal experience, that it works the other way around, too."

Then, Xander Harris kissed Harmony Kendall long and hard, before pulling his mouth free, to say one last comment.

"Oh, by the way, if you want to read the story, it's called, 'Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.'"


	7. Chapter 7

Far from Sunnydale, as time passed, the following events took place:

* * *

Dr. Margaret Walsh carefully put down the phone and stared at the far office wall. Only then did she allow herself a rare moment of actual rage to show on her otherwise normally icy features.

*MORE delays over something so….so ridiculous as a small town politician running off with the city treasury?!*

She looked down to notice her hands were resting flat on top of her desk and slightly trembling, the equivalent of someone else's temper tantrum accompanied with screaming at the top of their lungs.

The woman concentrated on quieting both her mind and body, until her entire being resembled a statue, something she truly wished for during her few flights of fancy. No messy emotions, glands, and thoughts to cause disorder and untidiness. Pure logic, that was the perfect goal.

*Well, at least until the investigation is over by the authorities, you can use the time to further develop your plans.*

A malevolent gleam appeared in the woman's eyes, as she turned to her computer keyboard and tapped her entry into her most heavily encrypted files. Her fingers stroked the keys almost sensually, as none had ever done to her, while she brought up a document that was labeled with a single one-word title:

ADAM

* * *

The vampire waited patiently as his master finished draining the teenage girl. It took only seconds for the formerly dark skin of the Slayer to turn as grey as the wall shackles that were the only thing holding up the body of the dying woman, as the last of her life slipped away.

Turning away from the corpse, the massive monster wiped its bloody mouth with an arm that ended in a hoof, turning this gesture into a waved command to approach him, which was promptly obeyed by the minion. All of the master vampire's underlings were taught by brutal lessons into instant compliance, as they learned it was extremely unwise to ever displease Kakistos, who had become a vampire of legendary viciousness nearly a thousand years ago in a Mediterranean land.

Coming to a stop in front of his superior, the vampire bowed, and keeping his eyes downcast, he reported, "Lord, the rumors appear to be true. While it is unclear if the controller of the Hellmouth is dead, removed, or absent, he is evidently missing and no longer in a position to dominate that wellspring of power."

"To kill or bring down that young pup would have taken immense magic. What news of whoever carried out such a feat?" rumbled Kakistos, his craggy features scowling.

His gaze fixed to the floor, the lesser vampire wished for a moment that he could still sweat. Uncertainty irritated his master, and those who brought him incomplete information to have Kakistos' state of mind change to that emotion risked needing a broom and dustpan for the disposal of their remains. On the other hand, lying to an eight-centuries-old vampire could result in him trying out in alphabetical order all the forms of torture the demon had learned in its entire existence upon the liar.

Trying to be as truthful as possible, the minion steadily spoke. "During the time period the Mayor vanished, extreme amounts of Chaos magic were sensed around Sunnydale, finishing when the holiday also came to an end."

"Holiday?" huffed the Greek vampire, not sure if he should take offense, but giving his underling a deadly glare.

"The events took place on October thirty-first, called in this land Halloween, which in turn came from the European festival known as Samhain."

"Ahhhhh…." meditatively growled Kakistos, his attention caught by this. "The time between the seasons of light and dark, when the veils between realities grow the thinnest they may ever do so…. Beings and aspects of power can be summoned or invoked then, if you dare, though there is often a cost or price more than anyone is willing to pay. Even such as we must be on our guard then, which the Mayor undoubtedly failed to do. The fool."

The vampire listening to these words maintained his subservient posture, though he inwardly felt a surge of relief. There had been evident interest in his master's voice at the end of his discourse, which lead to the next command.

"Look at me, to hear and obey."

The minion felt only the tiniest flicker of fear as he raised his head, knowing he had not displeased his superior, but still nervous about whatever would come.

The blaze of pure evil in his master's eyes was the brightest the lesser vampire had ever seen, as Kakistos ordered in his voice of rock being ground to powder, "Bring together all who are bound to me, to make plans to go to the Hellmouth and seize it for the glory of Kakistos. What again was the name of that town or place?"

"Sunnydale, my lord."

An expression of disgust appeared on the face deformed by centuries of vampire existence, as the monster contemplated a human village clearly named for the source of light over a lowland valley. Hiding any possible concern over the one thing that could still destroy him, Kakistos growled, "When I triumph, that shall be the first thing to be changed."

* * *

Faith Lehane woke up screaming and thrashing, trying to escape from glowing yellow eyes, deformed demonic faces lunging at her throat, and fangs tearing into that part of her body as her life clearly ended.

As the sounds of things shattering and breaking filled the air, a ceiling bedroom light came on. Standing by the opened door, a woman in her late thirties dressed in a nightgown and with disheveled hair, holding a small crossbow in one hand while still pressing the light switch with her other hand, Linda Campbell watched in horror for a few moments, before shouting, "Faith, wake up!"

However, it was only until a bed frame strained beyond endurance finally collapsed, dumping a barely-awake girl to bounce on her mattress, joined by the remains of her headboard, that a just in her teens girl finally realized where she was.

Wild eyes darted around the room, to recognize where she'd found a place off the streets, desperately glad to have food and warmth, despite whatever might need to be done to earn it. Faith had been so cold and hungry that she hadn't really cared if the next stop would have been a brothel when the woman had found her and told there was somewhere she could stay.

Weeks of suspicion finally eased into the young girl understanding that her rescuer was just another nutjob, exactly like those who came around the streets preaching the Lord Jesus Christ or Allah or the books of Mormon would save those who would listen. At least Linda had been more imaginative about it, with the Council and demons and Slayers and Potentials and all that crap. Faith had learned nearly from birth to keep her face blank and pretend to agree until her lecturer had been satisfied and provided the goods.

In this case, it was food (as much as she wanted!), a bed (all hers! nobody sharing! Linda had pulled the weirdest faces when she'd been bluntly asked if Faith had to sleep with her), clothes (not exactly her style, but they were warm and clean, so okay), and most important of all, money. A minor stipend had been given to her, and she'd kept every cent of it and also remembered where Linda stashed her own funds. A few more months, if nothing happened and it got warmer outside, she'd split with everything she could grab and sell. In the meantime, she'd pretend to pay attention to what Linda was telling her. Anyways, the martial arts lessons, even with the stakes and crossbows, were kinda interesting and potentially useful.

Now, of course, it had all gone to shit.

From the wreckage of her bed, Faith stared hopelessly at Linda, and said quietly, "Alla that stuff you told me, 'bout the Slayers and vampires and girls never seein' their twentieth birthday, it was the real deal?"

Linda opened her mouth, and then decided to say something else, staring at Faith's desolate features. Gently, she told the young girl, "I never lied to you, Faith."

The teenager slowly fell back into her bed lying on the floor, and just unseeingly looked upwards at the ceiling. Linda tentatively stepped into the room, trying not to trip over the wreckage, and stood by the mattress, until she impulsively sat down on it, by Faith's body.

Faster than the human could react, the newly-Called Slayer sat up in a blur, to wrap her arms around Linda and put her head on the shoulder of the older woman. The Watcher remained frozen, until she felt the body hugging her beginning to shake and liquid dripping onto her shoulder. There were no actual noises, though. The young girl desperately seeking reassurance had long ago learned to never show sounds of weakness to those predators around her.

Linda Campbell put her own arms around Faith Lehane, and just held her, despite how the Slayer's grip was going to leave bruises on the older woman's body that would last for weeks.

* * *

In a remote monastery, two monks looked down at the ancient manuscripts. One of the monks spoke.

"Are the portents still ominous, brother?"

"More than they have ever been, my friend. We must prepare now, to safeguard the Key from--"

The other monk was now interrupted by the first speaker.

"Do not say the name!"

Yet, the phrase still escaped from the monk's lips.

"--Glorificus."

* * *

Deep inside the Hellmouth itself, something stirred.


End file.
